2008-12-22

iPhone continues next year

Well, here are some screenshots from nonsense I'm testing.

These screenshots in no way reflect on any performance limits, SDK artifacts or in fact, ANY technical details about the iPhone whatsoever. In fact, I implemented ALL of these in SDL with C++ before putting them on the iPhone.

Point is, pictures that prove I can load models and scenes into my phone:


This was from 'YoBro', a blender game I played with. You can see that some of the nodes are missing, because I haven't put in correct parenting in my node tree, so it drops em. That kinda looks like a taurus, right?

Hey look, it's me in the iPhone!
Adventure clone without textures is lame. But, it's nice to see that the iPhone can handle 1000's of nodes.This is a poly-reduction of 'Delgadosaurus', a free poser model out there if you go looking; forgot the guy's name who made it, but cred to him! (will get ref eventually)

This is a bomberfan level, at a better angle.

This is one of the spaceships from GSS6, the cool part is it has the interior modeled, so you can actually fly/walk around the decks, crew quarters and sit at the bridge.
This is the classic 'dancing lizards' scene from an odd angle, I probably should have found the shotgun and taken a picture of that. But you can see nodes!


This is the classic 'Saurosaur' in 3D from one of my older games noone ever saw, and for good reason! It's a fully articulated model, but that's for later, right? Point is, it looks alright, and was quick to draw, which is interesting!

and OMG, bomberfan is stuck in the floor because I didn;t have the time to add in the node-parenting system like in FrameGL2! Dammit. Point is, his level works great.

So, textures to add; better node system, and then I'll be just about the the point I want to be at in terms of graphical powers.

Here's the kicker; These files are loaded from a website, so anyone can load any file they want! Extensible iPhone games! How rawk is that?!?!!?

...apple will probably shit a brick, good thing I can defend it:
1. All loaded data (external data) must fit a size maximum constraint (1MB)
2. All loaded data (external data) MUST be interpreted, and cannot be directly copied (IE instead of float memcpy, you have to: x = *(float*)data; along with brutally slow size checks
Files may be only ASCII in the future to enforce safe non-hacking conventions (you can;'t break it if there's nothign to break!)

Ah well.

c'yall later!

2008-12-21

Obscure graphic dream

WARNING

GORE, ADULT SITUATIONS, GRAPHIC VIOLENCE, GRAPHIC IMAGERY


... I bet you started reading, didn't you?

Well, to summarize before details, there was this Sean Connery look-alike that was the bad guy, kinda like Dr. Breen, and there was a host of other characters (people characters), specifically this always scantily clad heroine that looked like Alesia, and there was a giant "bunny-girl" running around. Also, lots of horrible mutated zombie-biohazard monsters.

For details;

It wasn't me in this dream, oddly, it was more like playing a movie, sometimes the camera would be switching between first and third persons. But, there was this brown haired 22 year old college student and his fiance, studying in this university that seemed to border a large industrial city, something like the outskirts of chicago, except by a much larger river/ocean. As the story began, we see a monologue of this guy, ralph, apparently was his name, but it never came up till the end. He looks out the side of a window of what looks like a plane, but ends up being a nice hydofoil watercraft, used to cross this channel into the city where he worked part time outside of school. Everyone was wearing this darker brown jumpsuit, and had alphanumerica band codes on their jackets, like some sort of weird work-nazi camp. But people were okay with this, you hear mutters about 'order' and 'accidents' and 'govenrmental authority'. It was starting out a lot like Half life or HL2.... So, the camera pulls back, and he talks to his chick, Rico, who was a cute asian chick, but more physically fit. They get on some stupid cute conversation about work, and the boat/plane stops, everyone filters off into this oddly designed city; all of the buildings were dark metal glass and concrete, the bottom 12 floors were pylons and raised, but contained civilian shops and municipal utilities. There were NO cars allowed in this city, people had to walk or bicycle to work. It was hard to describe the feel, it had a sort of Mirror's Edge tinge to the outlay, massing, sprawling metroplex, with no end in sight, but it also was condensed and looked worn; rusty fences and steamy iron grates, some parts of the city were destroyed, looked like missile attacks from something. In fact, it seemed that this was a generic distopia, but people were still working like slaves for some reason.
But, contrary to our initial assumptions, we follow the line of people as they enter the 'gate', which has a mass of people on one side, and the new arrivers at the other. the people on the OTHER side were dirty, soiled, some were bleeding, having puncture wounds, glass, and rusty marks as if they were trying to mercenary into the city somehow. Well, it turns out the brown suits ARE govenrment issue suits that help protect the workers from death in this city, as they are distributed this nifty energy-pistol and spade shovel-pickaxe. They are all herded into a group, where a fully armored person instructs them what to do today; Apparently, they were to clean building #35. What that means is still a mystery at this point, but in the background you can hear... noises...
So, the group sticks together, no mentions of the specifc threats they will face, and you see they plod on as the other group gets their issued suits burned off (painless, I assure you) and are forced to strip and go through a chemical bath and get thin white-robes before being scanned and allowed back on the hydroplane. This was some sort of odd war scenario, but what was the enemy? this didn't make a lot of sense.
So, we follow Rico for a moment, the group reaches the building, and are mumbling about what they have to do and all this, and they mobilize and tackle the 1st floor, pretty adventurous it seemed. The building itself (the first floor, mind you, was civilian) seemed intact, but there were odd brownish-red splotches every so often, lining and staining concrete, glass, plastic... it looked like meatloaf, but more shiny and slimey. So, we follow a small group of people, who take their shovels and begin destroying the pieces of the buildign that HAD this crap on them, you;d begin to notice most of the places were also already destroyed, and once they broke the chunk off, they;d use their energy pistol to burn it down, making a black spot that blew away with dust.
3 of the people we get to follow, as they decide to sneak off for a smoke. The second they leave the view of the rest of the group, and huddle down back in a corner of the building, you get a typical monster-horror shot of them crouched, smoking a joint, as slimey-creepy noises come up from behind, and the 'shadow of the monster' appears over them. They get frightened, and one of them tries to shoot it, but you actually get the camera instantly flipped around to see this grotesque fleshpile that has a pseudo humanoid form and pieces of bone, flesh, and other disgusting bits constantly dripping or bubbling up, and it simply lashes out and tears the guy's arm off. Apparently, contact with the stuff destroys you in horrible ways, we see lots of blood go everywhere as the monster seems to hack and slash these people to bits, spraying organs over the hallway like a ticker tape parade. IT then meticulously slithers over each of the dismemebered parts, seeming to 'eat' or assemble it into itself. It was obviously not a nessecary motion, but it seemed to then back off, simply picking off small groups. Obviously, lots of other workers were running away from the screams, but Rico and Ralph were noticing, and quicly unzip part of their suits and pull out these special guns they seemed to have made in their university (washington? huh), which looked a lot like that experimental gun from half life. they both charged forward, aiming and seeming to want to take on the monster themselves, like they had been studying and analysing it for a long time. Of course, they are greeted with nothing but more brown piles and blood, no parts were left. Apparently, the brown stuff was waste product from the monster, as it consumed new flesh, it discarded the least stable part of itself. Much like we do, but far quicker.
So, they missed the first monster. Cue some plot and interpersonal development with them trying to convince the team to do monster hunting, and conflicts, the work group disbands into two groups, and the hero group (Rico and ralph) go to floor 2 of the building *gasp*
So, it's a mini mall, no lights, so it's dark and creepy as hell, there are also far less brown puddles, and this crazy cool, musty stench surrounding the place. Whatever this was, it was some sort of breeding ground for this evil. Of course, they explore, and find history (2020's stuff) and examine it, taking pictures and the like. Well, there are about 12 of them in the group, and the monster doesn't show. Period. It's not a retarded monster like in most movies. It is a REAL predator.
So, after searching quite a few more floors, they make it to #5... where, things change a lot. on floor five, the bulding seems to be 'breathing', it was far more warm, and it was entirely clean. The 5th floor wasn;t shops, it was mall utility and office space, also the place where the HVAC unit was centered to pull air in, creating that pleasent breathing effect. Except, the HVAC isnt a living organism.
Continuing onward, they find that this gross, podlike collectiong of human bodies is hanging from this equally disgusting veiny red meat-sac, constantly pulsing in rythem to the breathing. THis was some sort of part of a larger monster, maybe the entire building contained it, somewhat like a gigantic shelled beast, merely a softer organism taking advantage of natural defenses, like a hermit crab will take a shell. Of course, this part of the beast was not knowledgeable about the human presence, and we see every once in a while bodies being switched out for different one,s which look pale and less healthy. It seemed that it had symbiosed with the human structure, using it to simple grow or produce food, much like a plant would be using clrorphyll to create energy, this thing was using human lungs to convert something to some sort of energy? Hard to say.
Point is, the team was disgusted, and decided to reatreat. With this new information, maybe they can make better decisions. However, as we get a typical camera closeup, this creature emits SPORES, and, well, all of this crew inhaled those markers without knowing it. That is, until they got to the bottom floor, and one of the males starts raping another female, out of nowhere. The rest of the team beats the hell out of him, but he bites them and goes al fast zombie, so they shoot him, and find that his insides had started melting...
Soon, more people in the team zombify, and guess what Rico and ralph do? those bastards inject themselves with needles of serum they had found, and escape that group, coughing up blood and pieces of lung, but otherwise okay. But, since this was MY movie, our predator comes by to pick up the stragglers, and our heroes have to watch this spectacle which is a little different since it's prey are immobilized. HD detail spares nothing for the squeamish.
So, the two try and get to lower floors, but the predator chases them to no end, forcing them to move up instead of down. Sirens go off in the background, as the spotters saw this happen, and called everyone back. But, our heros run blindly into th depths of this building, noting that the monster refuses to go anwhere without sunlight. And, at this point, ralph steps on the wrong piece of bulding, wich collapses and seperates the two, Ralph horribly falls through a lot of floors, ending up in a large seqer pipe fulled with seething human remain and waste; Not being a wimp, he fights his hardest to swim through the muck in any direction that seemed correct, wventually making it and crawling to a (like shawshank redemption, btw) intersection in the pipe, which was a large box (like in real sewers) that had a ventilator and ladder. Being soaked in this shit, he vainly tries cleaning it off, realizing that cool, clean air was coming from somewhere.
Meanwhile, Rico, screams for her partner, and hears the monster. It wanted to kill solo people, but was still afraid of the dark. Rico runs into one of the office complexes, which turns out the be a medical facility for some sort of oncological firm. she begins to look for supplies, hoping to construct a weapon of some kind, continuing to turn on and off lights at intervals, deciding to try and do it in the dark, which is really creepy.
Meanwhile, Ralph finds and crawls through an air duct to the outside world, gasping for breath and trying not to lose anything, but vomits and hangs there for a moment. A sniper on the ground starts shooting at him; He kinda looked like the monster, being covered in shit, so he crawls back before they could take another shot. Of course, that means the only way is up, ahd he begins to manuever through the grate upward, only to find part of the creature blocking on of the air vents, with a human body leaking a black fluid from it's missing eye sockets, which was not corrosive, just waste product. It seems the creature had made this building it's body in all senses, ducts for veins, cracks for storage and larger areas for organs.
Of course, Ralph takes a turn, and coincidentally ends up breaking through the ceiling, falling into the lab with Rico, who promtly was freaking out because of the scary noises coming from the pipes as he crawled through them, which made her turn on the lights to see what was happeneing. She ALMOST kills him, but realizes it was ralph, but isn't about to go touch him, and get's him to the safety shower.
However, after ralph has on a lab coat, the light they were using attracts the monster, and it begins pounding on the windows, which displays lots of gross details about it's composition; It had no real face, but seemed to have some sort of skeletal shape, comprized of all the organisms it has assimilated. Naturally, there's no way to escape but through the sewer again, so they both go for the air grate and hastily clamber on down the air duct, almost getting nabbed by the creature, who seems to be unable to fit into the air duct, good to know. Of course, it gets mad and breaks the lab, yadda yadda. They eventually escape, but through a different vent through the back of the building, which shows part of the city you were not able to see in the beginning of the movie.
At this point, both people are pretty badly beat, their clothes have been semi-digested from the horrible liquids they've been in, they are both vomiting blood from the air they've inhaled, and all their clothes are torn or missing. But, they make it OUT of the building, away from the snipers, and clamber down to some sort of respite inside of a freight car, which conveniently has a hose nearby where we get a nice gratuitous shower scene with Rico, because she made Ralph not watch. Both now have their clothes on now, which were suits taken from the storage crate, and things at this point begin to get a little weird;
They are now battered herors, and out of nowhere, this breen/connery lookalike appears, standin on top of a mass of crates, in full business attire, saying somethign to them about knowing too much, interfering with plans, and some more nonsense. Words start to be exchanged, but 4 duke-nukem clones show up as bodyguards, ready to gun them down. Of course, for no good reason, it's time for this giant macro-bunny anthro monster to show up, but I clarify:
It wasn;t exactly a 'bunny gal', it was more of a female body with paws/claws instead of hands feet, and instead of a bunny face, it was quite draconic, except it had ears. Really messed up, who knows why this suddenly turned into furry-macro-fandom. Goddamit.
But either way, this bunny starts attacking the duke clones, eats one of them and everyone starts runnin! So the fight begins, with a giant yard full of fencing, crates, and what looks like a super mario sunshine level. Our heros split up to avoid the gunfire, breen guy just appears and reappears everywhere, apparently the giant does not take sides, more duke clones get killed in somewhat kinky-grotesque ways (you probably want details, but all you gotta know is that 2 things with enough mass easily crush human bodies), all the while you geep getting told details about military experiements and light-rays and weird shit. You don;t care, you're mind is blown from previous experience, the monster from before seems to have no bearing on anything going on at the moment, and this odd noise begins to fill the air, some sort of highly consistent humming, much like that from a powerline, and after our giant bunny monster finishes off the remaining villians, leaving breen, it leaves at hearing the noise, rather hastily too. Breen continues to appear closer and closer, but the noise and brightness of the scene increases, and suddenly a closeup of his face, a flash of seizure white, and a long series of mother language words from satan himself were heard, and then, nothing, and you were on your knees, along, choking on blood and losing your hearing, eyes burining. Rico was dead, she had been shot in the head, her corpse next to yours. Now without any recourse, fiance dead, mission failed, everything going wrong, you continue on, and eventually get to the other end of the island, eyes melted, skin burning, and your body soon to die.
Apparently, what happened was some sort of odd meteorite hit this town, and was highly highly radioactive. It mutated-fried everyone in that building, and the surrounding town, and you were etting small doses a day of radiation to clean up the parts of the land... apparently, they can;t missile the site because it would spread the radiation, but you wish you knew beforehard.
It's a rather pretty city, and the camera pans out as you finally collapse and die from exposure, showing the shape of the island to be of some signifigance in the world...

And the movie ended! I left out some salicious details.

...this is yet another example of why I should continue making games. With THIS kind of inspiration, how can I not!?!?!

iPhone progress continues.

2008-12-18

Drunk dreams

So, one of my favorite waitresses in one of my favorite establishments got me drunk on some redneck teas...

So I get home, and fight my iPhone till about 2:30 am.

but the crazy dream I had... MAN it was nuts.

I can't entirely remember all of it, but I was in DC with a bunch of co-workers, giving a presentation to Air Bus or something like that, and our building get's implosion bombed.
That's right, just like what happened in sept. 11, this building collapsed on all of us, and probably make a huge mess.
However, being dream world, it turned out just the middle of the building collapsed, and no one was hurt or killed, so it looked like some sort of godzilla reject had just stomped through the middle of the building, making it into this giant 'death arena' sorta thing, with a flat concrete floor. On the top floor, all the recent presidential nominees and their appointees were having some sort of conference, and I got to help Mcain and some other people I'm supposed to know up from the rubble. Obama didn't NEED help, he's badass like that.
So, I began talking to these political players, since we just had to wait for fire crews and other public servants to rescue em. There was some sort of awesome conversation we had about the economy, and I really wish I had it recorded, because they said some things I wasn't aware of, kinda solving and exposing more detail about the problem. Lots of DOD stuff, really.
But the fun part came when Mcain started to act like Mcain, and got angry at Obama for wanting to try and decentralize some things, and they started this Stree- Fighter kinda fighting game, and suddenly, out of nowhere, it turned into a PS3 fighting game in 'Fighter's Destiny' style, and Obama and Mcain start going at it, in their suits... they box for a while, with lots of political figureheads cheering their sides on, it was freaking awesome.

Hard to describe, I was pretty drunk still when I got up this morning. Most importantly, watching political candidates fight for real causes was awesome. Maybe if we made those fat white guys actually physically come to blows, then more problems would get solved faster...

I got my develoepr id from apple. Now it's time to fly.

2008-12-07

Weird dream

Well, I suppose it wasn't that weird, but here's the summary:

Take Mirror's Edge, and merge it with Dead Space, and remove the stupid guro style violence in substitute for more humorous RE violence.

It was quite a neat extension to Mirror's Edge, I was very impressed with the way it was NOT a sequel, but rather a logical extension to the mechanics, for example, in the original mirrors edge, it was somewhat like a parkour(sp?) simulation, in that holding items meant you couldn;t grab onto ledges and so forth.
In this version, we take the same type of plot, it is in the future and we start out on this cluster of 'sky cities' which are on a jovian style planet, basically large floating platforms controlled by some form of generic opressive government. Spaceships, lasers, and lots of futuristic stuff in the spirit of dead space happen, and you along with a team of peoples are some sort of underground movement to try and goldeneye your way to stopping this opression. So, you can split screen, as well as normal play. The game starts out much like mirrors edge, except you get a slew of new tools so you can actually fight back, and play minigames to solve puzzles and so forth. Combat was much improved, and you actually had to fight back at times since some aliens were present that would and will kill you.
So, from what I remember, you run around in the lower part of this skyblock, parkouring your way down concrete and metal corridors, hitting switches, collecting guns and upgrading your wrist utilties. It wasn't just about running around, as you did have to focuse on espionage a lot, so it was more like goldeneye.
However, at some point in the game, you have to infilitrate this guarded base and steal a computer chip from the core, and fight parkour bosses (large moving machines, basically) and real bosses (shadows of the empire style). The blending and timing of doing both was really well done, it was quite fun to play. But, when you grab that chip, the plot twists, and this race of large mutant cool looking bug-monster aliens comes down and starts to kill the opressors.
Here's where it went different, like Crysis, the aliens can destroy the level realtime as they try and shove their spiked appendage through your chest (like isaac). So, as you are trying to escape, this bug monster comes storming through the hallway, rippinag appart the people and walls, to which the game automatically calculates new routes to follow for your parkour escape. And it's not scripted, as you can go different ways and the bug fllows YOU because it wants that chip! Which makes it all sorts of difficult if you double back on yourself.
Graphics were PS3 quality, of course, and the gameplay was pretty intense at times. More importantly, it felt like a perfectly balanced logical extension to the Mirror's Edge series.



Of great importance, is I am developing apps for the iPhone.

See ya'll new years!